June 11, 2009

The puffins are back

OH GLORY BE. OH JOY. The Daily Bungle reports that the birds are flying north. The tufted puffins are back, apparently. And if the tufted puffins are back, can the rest be far behind? I refer to the burled dimwitts, the ring-necked godsends, the unbridled waterworts, and the wungood terns (each of whom deserves another).

What this avian invasion foretells, of course, is the start of another wonderful season of sailing in the best sailboat cruising ground in the country. It’s our little secret and we strive to keep it that way: hundreds of friendly, pristine islands and cozy anchorages in the San Juan and Gulf Islands.

For our own nefarious reasons, we try to make outsiders believe it’s the worst climate in the country. You probably have the impression that it’s cold and damp all the time here in the Pacific Northwest, a miserable climate of non-stop rain, galoshes, umbrellas, and mold behind the ears. Good, that’s what we want you to think. But for the record, we’re now into our 22nd day in a row with no rain. Just blue skies, 70 to 80 degrees, and that lovely warm northwesterly wind.

Most of all, we don’t want the Californians to know how nice it is up here. We’re only separated by one state, for goodness’ sake, and you can’t trust Californians. They’re very unpredictable people. And there’s so many of them. We don’t want them coming up here throwing their money and weight around and pushing up the price of everything. They fired their former governor, the very sensible Gray Davis because he warned them to quit their excessive borrowing and spending. That wasn’t what they wanted to hear. In his stead, they elected a weightlifter with an Austrian accent and an abundance of muscles balanced by a vast deficit of political knowhow. So now California, the fifth biggest economy in the world, is broker than broke.

It’s all very worrying. You never know where Californians might go to next. I hope they don’t read the Daily Bungle. And if they do, I hope they won’t understand the significance of the arrival here of the tufted puffins and their feathered pals. But, just in case, I think I’m going to start a rumor on Twitter that tufted puffins like bad weather and that their bites are poisonous to Californians. Yeah, sure they’ll believe it. Of course they will. Hell, they believed a muscle-bound weightlifter could cure their money problems, didn’t they?

Today’s ThoughtIf I were running the world I would have it rain only between 2 and 5 a.m. Anyone who was out then ought to get wet. —William Lyon Phelps

Tailpiece“Hi, gorgeous, can you suggest something in the way of a good time?”“Yeah, my husband. He’s standing behind you.”